


The Stealing a Shifter Job

by AlannaofRoses



Series: The Pack Long Con [3]
Category: Leverage
Genre: Eliot Spencer Deserves Nice Things, Gen, Pixie Parker, Shifter Eliot Spencer, Sophie just wants to Fix Things, Team Dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-04-25
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:40:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23830978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlannaofRoses/pseuds/AlannaofRoses
Summary: In the aftermath of the team finding out Eliot is a Full Shifter, the Hitter seems terrified they'll no longer accept him. Sophie is determined to prove Eliot wrong and show him just how much he means to the team.Follows directly after 'The Trusting a Shifter Job' and 'The Pixie Job', so it's recommended you read those first.
Series: The Pack Long Con [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1710754
Comments: 8
Kudos: 90





	The Stealing a Shifter Job

Sophie waits until she and Nate are alone to freak out.

She whirls on the mastermind. “Why didn’t you tell me Eliot was a Full Shifter?”

She’d heard the animal in his voice when Parker had been in danger, they all had. She’d expected his usual half-shift, those deadly teeth and wicked claws turning him into something of a nightmare for anyone he stood against.

Instead, pulling up to that warehouse, the van careening around that last corner, they had found a huge lion waiting for them calmly, and no sign of Parker at all.

Sophie and Hardison had hesitated by the van, unsure of Eliot’s mental state and trying to absorb the fact that Eliot was a full-on lion Shifter.

Nate had approached warily, never taking his attention fully off the lion even as he scanned the area for their missing teammate.

“Eliot.” Nate’s voice had been gentle, coaxing, not too different from his con voice. “Where is Parker, Eliot?”

And then the most surprising thing of all.

Eliot had huffed gently at Nate, a motion that reminded Sophie of nothing more than Eliot’s typical eye-roll, and had bent his head.

There, in the tangles of Eliot’s mane, a tiny pixie lay sleeping.

Sophie gasped, and the lion flinched, his ears laying flat against his head as if were waiting to be scolded. To be hurt.

It had broken Sophie’s heart.

And then Nate had stepped in. “Good job Eliot. Thank you for protecting her.”

Those golden eyes had shone.

Eliot had refused to shift with Parker still sleeping in his mane, so they had ridden home with a giant lion crouched in the back of the van, Hardison sitting wide-eyed next to him all the way back to the safehouse.

Parker had woken about the same time the van stopped, both of their non-human teammates had returned to their human forms, and the Shifter and Pixie had scurried away. Hardison had mumbled something about needing to defrag and disappeared as well.

Which left Sophie and Nate standing in the Leverage Office, staring at each other while Sophie tried to wrap her mind around the fact that Eliot was a Full Shifter.

“You knew.” It wasn’t a question.

Nate nodded anyway. “I’d chased Shifters with IYS. I didn’t know Eliot was one of them until he showed up though.”

“Did Dubenich know?”

Nate snorted. “I’m pretty sure he did not.”

“And Parker.” Sophie turned away, needing to move, her head spinning. “I knew she was a pixie, but to see it…”

“Did she tell you?”

“No, I figured it out pretty quick though.” Sophie replied. There was something in Nate’s voice that made her turn to look at the mastermind. “You didn’t.”

Nate looked uncomfortable. “I would have, eventually. Eliot told me.”

“Had you seen either of them shift before?”

Nate shook his head. “I think Eliot was scared to. Of what we would think of him. He wouldn’t even look us in the eyes half-Shifted. As for Parker, I don’t think she has a lot of happy memories associated with her fey form.”

Sophie sank onto the couch. “Oh Nate, what do we do now?”

“Do?”

“Eliot’s a Shifter, Nate!” Sophie threw her hands up. “A Full Shifter!”

“Hey now, he’s proven himself, I know there’s a lot of bad things said about them, but Eliot…”

“That’s not what I meant and you know it.” Sophie interrupted; her voice reproachful. “I meant we’ve been working with Eliot for going on a year now and not once did he fully Shift, or even mention he could. I don’t know about Parker, but I do know neither Hardison nor I had any idea. He was terrified Nate! For all we know he still is, just waiting for us to kick him to the curb for who he is.” She knew she was getting too worked up, but she couldn’t quite manage to stop. Eliot; brave, kind, tough Eliot; was hurting in a way she could only imagine, and she needed to fix it.

“Hey.” Nate gripped her elbows, stilling her. “Listen, you know Eliot. We come at this head on, he’s gonna run. He’s hardwired to believe he can’t be himself anywhere, and nothing we say is going to change that.”

“So what do we do?” Sophie begged.

“We show him.” Nate smiled in that way that said all the puzzle pieces were clicking together inside his head. “We steal ourselves a Shifter.”

It wasn’t easy.

It wasn’t easy when Eliot crept into the nest briefing, looking like he was expecting to be kicked. It wasn’t easy when she noticed he always put the knife down and backed away if one of them came into the kitchen while he was cooking. It wasn’t easy keeping her mouth shut when she began to tally up the days since she’d seen even a hint of claws or teeth from their hitter, even when it could have helped him avoid injury on a job. It wasn’t easy watching him flinch away if any of them got to near.

Even Parker.

Now that was an interesting dynamic.

Where Eliot had been careful not to show any hints of his form since he’d outed himself to the team, Parker seemed to have decided that since they knew she had no reason to hide. It wasn’t unusual to find the pixie fluttering around their heads during briefings, for her to disappear suddenly during a con and reappear magically inside the locked office or storage unit that just happened to have a vent shaft just a bit too small for a human.

And surprisingly enough, the sight of the tiny pixie tucked against Eliot’s neck, nearly hidden by his hair, was becoming common as well.

In fact, pixie Parker was the only creature Eliot didn’t seem to have a sudden aversion too, even if he still had a hard time with her human form.

Sophie wondered privately if that had anything to do with Parker’s sudden love of her pixie form, since she had managed to catch the flashes of hurt on human Parker’s face whenever Eliot would brush her aside. Parker and Eliot had always had some sort of understanding that the rest of them weren’t in on. It was, partially at least, that they were both supernaturals. It linked them in a way their human teammates couldn’t fully understand.

But there was something else too, something under the surface.

Eliot and Parker had both been broken in very similar ways, and both of them had clawed their way back to the surface with all the fire in their supernatural souls.

So instead of fighting against the jagged edges of Eliot, Sophie started leaving room for them.

She let the Shifter put himself between her and any perceived threats, keeping close to him when they were under threat, letting him know she trusted him to protect her. She sat just a bit too close whenever they shared the couch. She started sitting in the kitchen while he made dinner, and hid a secret smile the first time he hesitantly picked up a knife with her in the room. She thanked him for protecting her after a scary situation, she complimented his food, she asked his opinion when Nate laid out his plans.

It worked.

Slowly, so slowly, Eliot relaxed again. He began to trust that they weren’t faking it, weren’t waiting to drop the hammer when he least expected it.

The first time Eliot half-Shifted next to her to get them out of a sticky situation, Sophie blinked back tears.

And when they reached the van, safe with the team, she leaned over and brushed a kiss against his stubbled cheek, feeling the outline of his too-big teeth under the soft human skin. “Thank you, Eliot.”

He smiles at her, razor-sharp canines and all.


End file.
